Joe Strong the Boy Fire-Eater eBook

He pointed dramatically to Joe, who stood up straight,
ready to do his act.

“Are you ready?” asked the man who was
to release the trapeze, which was caught up at one
side of the platform opposite Joe.

“Ready,” answered the young acrobat.

The man pulled a rope which released a catch, letting
the trapeze start on its long swaying swing.
The man pulled it by means of a long, thin cord, until
it was making big arcs, like some gigantic pendulum.

Joe watched it carefully, judging it to the fraction
of an inch. He stood poised and tense on the
gayly decorated platform, himself a fine picture of
physical young manhood. The band was blaring out
the latest Jazz melody.

Suddenly, from his perch, the young acrobat gave a
cry, and Jim Tracy, on the ground below, hearing it,
held up his white-gloved hand as a signal for the
music to cease.

Then Joe leaped. Full and fair he leaped out
toward the swinging bar of the big trapeze, the snare
drum throbbing out as he jumped. He was dimly
conscious of thousands of eyes watching him—­eyes
that looked curiously and apprehensively up.
And he realized that Helen was also watching him.

As true as a die, Joe’s hands caught and gripped
the bar of the swinging trapeze. So far he was
safe. The momentum of his jump carried him in
a long swing, and he at once began to undulate himself
to increase his swing. He must do this in order
to get to the second platform.

As the young performer began to do this, he looked
up at the wire ropes of his trapeze.

It was a look given instinctively and for no particular
purpose, as Joe’s eyes must rest, most of all,
on the second platform where he needed to land, to
save himself from a bad fall.

As his eyes glanced along the steel cables on which
his life depended, he saw, to his horror, a spot of
rust on one. And at the spot of rust several
of the thin strands of twisted wire were loose and
frayed.

The cable seemed about to give way!

CHAPTER V

A FIRE SENSATION

Joe Strong had to think quickly. Every acrobat,
every person who does “stunts” in a circus,
must; for something is always happening, or on the
verge of taking place. And when Joe looked up
and saw the rusted wire and noted the fraying strands,
several thoughts shot through his mind at once.

“That rust spot wasn’t there this morning
when, I looked at the trapeze,” he mused.
“And it hasn’t rained since. How did
it get there?”

He thought of the too talkative Harry Loper, and an
ugly suspicion associated itself with him. But
Joe had no time for such thoughts then. What
was vital for him to know was whether or not the thin
wire cable would remain unbroken long enough for him
to reach the maximum of his swing, and land on the
platform. Or would he fall, spoiling the act and
also endangering himself?